Читать книгу The Black Sheep Sheik - Dana Marton - Страница 9

“Are you hit?” Isabelle swerved to avoid a pothole the size of a meteor crater, her voice an octave higher than usual. She was used to hospital emergencies, but a shoot-out at her father’s old cabin was a whole different category. Normally, she had to deal only with the aftermath of violence, sewing up cuts after a fight or removing bullets. Being in the middle of a battle was a whole other kettle of fish.

“No. You?” Amir pulled himself back into the car at last. He’d been hanging half out the window, firing at the men behind them like some Old West gunslinger, keeping them pinned to their positions, doing interesting things to the hospital gown he was wearing.

Good thing she wasn’t watching.

He was not a sheltered palace royal, obviously. “I’m fine. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

He gave her a hard look. “You know, all Arabs are not terrorists. My father was an excellent hunter. He used to take me with him.”

She glanced into the rearview mirror. “I wasn’t implying anything.”

The van gave pursuit, but they didn’t know every dip in the old country road as she did, and the “dirt-bike obstacle course” nature of it slowed them down. “I’m guessing those are the men who want you dead,” she said as calmly as she was capable. “Who are they?”

“I don’t recognize a single face.” He scowled. “Are you sure you are all right? You didn’t hit your belly?”

“I’m a doctor. I can monitor my own condition.” She didn’t need him to take care of her. She needed to be far away from him.

She glanced in the rearview mirror again. “They’re getting closer.” As they neared the main highway, the old road got better and better, proving less of an impediment.

He rifled through the glove compartment. “I’m out of bullets. Do you have any more?”

“Sure, and check for that grenade launcher under your seat.” She rolled her eyes. Just because she lived in the country, it didn’t mean she was some militia chick. Although, at the moment, maybe just one extra cartridge would have been nice.

He actually checked under the seat.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You know, all Americans are not gun crazy.”

“You had a gun.”

“My father had a gun. And I don’t think he ever shot anything.”

She reached the main road at last and pulled onto it, seeing only one other car way far ahead, and one way far behind them. “Hang on.”

She floored the gas and the SUV shot forward at an even greater speed. She didn’t much care about the speed limit. The cops pulling her over would be a good thing right now. Of course, the cops were never around when you needed them.

“Do you have the phone?”

“I left it at the cabin. Dead battery.” He shoved his long fingers through his jet-black hair.

She really needed a new battery for that phone. This one was getting worse and worse at holding a charge. Of course, she might not live long enough to have to worry about that again. She gripped the wheel tight and passed a beaten-up pickup that was towing a horse trailer.

“I should be driving.” Frustration and disapproval sat clear on Amir’s face. “We should switch.”

“Because I look ready to perform acrobatics in tight places?”

“You don’t like doing what I tell you,” he observed with obvious displeasure. “Tough chickpeas.”

“What’s that?”

“Something my father used to say. Sit back and hang on until we lose these idiots. I’m going to have to handle this, because there’s no other way.” He really had been a lot more agreeable when he’d been in a coma. They’d had a couple of really good talks. She’d talked. He listened very sweetly, even when she’d berated him for having concealed his true identity. She’d also run some ideas by him about the future and her plans to raise her son. His silent support had been much appreciated.

At the moment, he was eyeing the steering wheel as if he were considering grabbing it.

“Don’t make me go for the eject button,” she warned.

He folded his arms in front of him, the tight look on his face betraying just how little he appreciated her sense of humor. Odd how for the last nine months, she’d been thinking about him as a dashing foreigner who’d been all fun and games. Better put that down to hormonal brain damage.

“If you want to do something, put some clothes on. I have a bag of my father’s old things in the back.” She’d planned to drop it off at the Salvation Army on her way to her doctor’s appointment today.

He reached back and pulled the bag forward, selected a dark shirt and a pair of jeans, then shoved the rest back.

“The jeans will probably be too big in the waist. There are a couple of belts in the bottom of the bag.” She kept her gaze straight ahead as he dressed—jeans on bare bottom. Completely straight ahead. As if her life depended on it. Which it did.

The temperature in the car rose a few degrees. She cursed her peripheral vision. She so didn’t need any more tantalizing images of Amir in her brain. At the speed she was driving, it simply wasn’t safe.

He turned fully toward her when he was done, bracing himself on the dashboard with his right hand. “I’m going to ask you some questions. Do not be offended.”

She let out a slow breath. “That’s not a good start, is it?”

He scowled some more. Where did he get that? She didn’t remember him scowling once during the two days they’d spent together in the Emerald Suite. He’d been fun-loving, curious and imaginative. Very imaginative.

“Did you have anything to do with that limousine exploding?”

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “No.”

“Did you know who I was back when we first met?”

“No. And I wish I still didn’t know.” His royal background only complicated things.

He paused before his next question. “Do you want me dead?”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “I spent the last month of my life taking care of you.” She glared at him for a second. She couldn’t afford to take her eyes off the road longer than that. “Do I want you back in Jamala? Oh, yes. Dead? No. And that’s an insult, by the way.” She glanced into the rearview mirror. Their pursuers were even closer now than the last time she’d checked.

“I need to know without a doubt—”

“Could you not accuse me of attempted murder in the middle of a high-speed, armed chase? It’s the first time I’m doing something like this.”

He muttered something under his breath. Sounded like he was once again lamenting the fact that he wasn’t sitting behind the wheel.

And she didn’t say anything back. She was a doctor. She was used to dealing with the U.S. health-care system. She was used to disrespect. She was used to frustration. She was just going to treat him as a difficult patient or a snotty health-insurance representative. She was going to take the high road if it killed her.

She kept her focus on the road as miles whizzed by. Her game was to put as many cars between her SUV and the black van as possible. All the hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes she’d gained practicing general surgery now came in pretty handy.

“I’m going to trust you,” he said out of the blue, just as she passed a tractor-trailer.

“Whoopee.”

“Do you mock me?” He sounded startled.

She wanted to beat her head against the steering wheel. “I wouldn’t dare.” First he asked her to marry him; then he decided to trust her? She almost pointed out the insanity of that, before she realized that he hadn’t actually asked her to marry him. He’d told her.

She gritted her teeth, while he seemed to have fallen into regal, disdainful silence. The black van was still following them, but at least their pursuers were no longer shooting. A definite improvement.

“Why did they find me now?” he asked after a while. “Why not before? They had four weeks to track me down.”

She hadn’t had time to think about that yet. She considered his question as she took the next exit, heading for Dumont, hoping to lose her pursuers in a maze of narrow streets and alleys.

“I made some calls yesterday,” she confessed. It was the only possible link she could come up with. “This baby could come any minute. You couldn’t be left alone at the cabin while I went into the hospital to give birth. You needed someone to run the medical equipment.”

He thought that over. “How did you get all that equipment together with short notice?”

“My father recently passed away from cancer. He wanted to die at the cabin, so I had everything set up for him.” Including two generators, plus the sun panels on the roof. “He had a twenty-four-hour nurse, and I went out there every day after my shift ended.” Her father had desperately tried to hang on long enough to meet his grandson.

Moisture gathered in her eyes. She blinked it away. “With the funeral and all, I hadn’t had a chance to call for pickup yet when you showed up.” It hadn’t been an easy summer.

“I’m sorry about your father.” His tone was subdued.

She nodded, driving as fast as she could while still keeping control of the vehicle.

“You made sure your father was taken care of. Then you cared for me. You are an extraordinary woman.”

Probably trying to butter her up for something. But when she glanced over, she saw only surprise on his face. Which irked her. “Did you think I would abandon my father at the end of his life? Or that I would leave the father of my child bleeding on the road?”

“I was giving you a compliment. We didn’t have sufficient time to fully discover each other before. Many things about you are new to me. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.” He looked surprised at that, too, as if the words coming out of his mouth were a revelation to him.

They were finally in Dumont and she took the first bigger road to the left, heading for a more densely populated area where enough smaller streets crisscrossed each other for a car to disappear.

“You can be part of your son’s life without us having anything to do with each other.” She didn’t like the idea of sharing her baby—it hadn’t been the way she’d planned things—but, fine, he had the right, and her child would want to know his father. She could be flexible. To a point. “Once he’s old enough to be in school, he could go to Jamala for a week each summer.”

“My son will not grow up in a broken home,” he said in a tone he must have used for royal decrees, authoritative and final.

How did they get back to the subject of marriage again? “Let’s talk about something else before my blood pressure sends us hurtling into a phone pole, okay?”

“Do you have problems with your blood pressure? You said the pregnancy was going well,” he accused her.

“No problems whatsoever before you woke up.” She gritted her teeth. He got to her like no other, pushing all the wrong buttons.

Funny how nine months ago he’d been pushing all the right ones. And then some. She bit her lip. She so needed to stop thinking about those insane two days.

She glanced at the rearview mirror. No black van in sight. She careened into a back alley and slowed, surveyed the row of back doors, which she knew led to kitchens and laundry rooms, swerved to avoid the garbage cans lined up by the road. Not a person in sight, only a cat sauntering in front of her.

She brought the SUV to a complete stop. “Do we try to find a phone and call the police?”

He shook his head.

“Who then? FBI? CIA? Department of Defense?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” Because that would have been easy. “Then what?”

He looked darkly ahead.

“Did you talk to anyone on the phone before the battery went dead?”

He nodded.

“Bad news?”

He nodded again.

“Can I just remind you that you recently decided to trust me? Some information would be nice. We’re in this together.”

His face darkened further. “I apologize for that.”

She didn’t want apologies. She wanted a plan. “Why can’t we call the police?”

“Efraim said… The phone gave out before he could explain. No police.”

“Fine. Then we find a phone and you can call this Efraim again.”

“Yes. That would be best. My friends will send a team for us. We’ll be safe at the resort. Once the royal physician arrives, he’ll take you to Jamala under guard. I might have to stay here for a day or two. There are international relations to consider. I might have duties left still with things we came here to accomplish.”

She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of his security staff arriving and taking control of her. “Or, how about this? Why wait for anyone? With armed madmen looking for us out there, I’m thinking time is of the essence. I can take you to Wind River and your friends. Then we part ways. I’ll drop you off at the gate.”

“We must not fight about this. Stress is not good for you or my son. You should be reasonable.” He had the gall to reproach her.

Enough steam gathered in her head to fill the steam bath at the resort’s fancy spa. She gave Amir her sweetest smile. “If you don’t like my plan, you can always get out of the car right here.”

He didn’t have the chance to respond. The black van appeared at the other end of the alley, flying toward them, motor roaring.

No room to turn the SUV around.

No time to inch out of the narrow alley backward, slowly.

They were trapped.

BEFORE ANY BULLETS could fly, Amir bolted from the car, Isabella right next to him. He hated, absolutely hated, that he’d brought danger to her. He couldn’t believe she had the wherewithal to grab her purse first, but she had it with her as they busted in through the back door of the nearest house. They ran through a small, empty kitchen, then a living room, a half-dozen cats scattering from their path and giving them dirty looks.

“Is that you, Brian?” a woman called from upstairs, hardwood floor creaking as she moved around. “Where have you been?”

They burst through the front door without answering, then scrambled across the road, into a crowded bar that smelled like smoke and beer, the Jukebox blaring a country song he wasn’t familiar with. They slowed to make their way to the back without drawing too much attention. In seconds they were in another alley. His muscles were shaking; his breathing was heavy. He cursed his weak legs, which slowed them both.

“You made it this far. You can do it.” Isabelle took him by the hand to pull him after her.

Male pride said he should pull away and make his way unaided. But her small hands felt incredible around his fingers, the feel of her warm skin giving him a jolt, bringing back memories. He left his hand in hers and ignored his screaming muscles.

The faces of their pursuers danced in his mind. This time, he’d made a point of taking a good look. He didn’t recognize any of them. They didn’t look Jamalan. They looked American.